We love to say…because its true, lol…that personal and professional growth is tied to building relationships, curious learning and sometimes just showing up. Here are three recent podcasts that are examples of all three. If you listen, boy will you learn a great deal from our guests.
Great Scott. The first one is our conversation with Peter Scott. Peter is an experienced broadcast and digital media expert who currently serves as the Chief Strategy Officer at Play Anywhere, Inc. but he really helped shape the vision and depth of success at Turner for decades. A genuine big thinker who helped take those plans and bring them to market, Pete, breaks down the current technological advances in the sports world and how these innovations bring sports closer to fans in the digital landscape. Click here.
The People You Meet On The Road. I was standing in the hotel lobby in Nashville at the end of the World Congress of Sports when my colleague Dan Conley came over and said you have to meet this guy. I’m always up for a chance meeting, especially when it comes from someone like Dan. I then met Calvin Sibert, Chief Mission Officer at Learn Fresh, a former teacher who has combined his passion for learning and giving young people an edge up with his love for sports. Calvin and his team have turned a simple game idea into a massively impactful business and teaching tool for kids. The NBA Math Hoops program is helping students build critical math and social-emotional skills through the power of sports. On the podcast he shares his journey from 20 years as a schoolteacher in Detroit to leading a nonprofit that now serves over 1.5 million students worldwide. He discusses how partnerships with the NBA, WNBA, and MLB have fueled growth, the program’s expansion into digital platforms, and why creating confidence in the classroom matters as much as academics. All from a simple idea, listen here.
The Places You Go, The Things You Learn. One of the great experiences I was lucky enough to be involved with a few years ago was in building two young people’s learning programs, one at Columbia and one at The School of the New York Times. These intensive two and three-week summer learning programs for high school students interested in sports taught me more than it taught them. While I am no longer formally involved in either, and these summer learning programs have been replicated to various degrees across the country, the super in-depth ones we started, I think, set a pretty high standard. The best part of these programs were the young people we touched, and one of them was, and is, Max Iger. I have been lucky enough to stay in touch with a core group of these young people, knowing them when they were 15 or 16, and seeing where they are today. The places they have gone, and the things they keep teaching us. Max is currently with the Corporate Sports team at CAA Sports and was formerly a Basketball Operations Assistant at San Antonio Spurs after getting his degree from the University of Texas and his Masters back with us at Columbia.. Always a curious learner who has been in the orbit of people like Greg Popovich, Mike Levine, and RC Buford amongst many others, he talks about sports consumption trends among his Gen Z peers and also stresses the importance of wearing different hats in the sports industry. For career changers and career growers, this is a fun and worthwhile listen. Click here.
